An electrical system for a vehicle, in which two voltage sources can be coupled with a plurality of consumers of electrical energy, e.g., by means of two circuit breaker components marketed by the Applicant of the present application under the trade name Q diode (quasi diode) as a function of the operating state, is known from the subsequently published German Patent Application DE 10 2016 101 081. A driving unit applying a driving voltage to the circuit breaker components as a function of the operating state is provided for switching circuit breaker components which can be switched over between a conductor state and a diode state.
EP 2 017 935 A2 discloses a circuit breaker component for a vehicle electrical system, which has a circuit breaker component input terminal, a circuit breaker component output terminal as well as a circuit breaker component driving terminal, to which the driving voltage switching over the circuit breaker component between the conductor state and a diode state is to be applied.
If such circuit breaker components are operated in a diode state, then these are in a blocked state when the potential being applied to the circuit breaker component input terminal is higher than the potential being applied to the circuit breaker component output terminal. The potential being applied to a circuit breaker component input terminal may, for example, essentially be determined by the supply voltage of a battery feeding an electrical system with electrical energy. In principle, operating states may occur, in which the potential at the circuit breaker component output terminal is higher than the potential at the circuit breaker component input terminal because of a malfunction or an operating error in the diode state of a circuit breaker component. As a result, the circuit breaker component, which is operated, in principle, in its diode state, reaches a conductive state, in which a current flow takes place from the circuit breaker component output terminal to the circuit breaker component input terminal in case of a comparatively low voltage drop. In this state, currents of up to 30 A may flow, which may lead to a comparatively high power loss and accordingly to a comparatively intense heating and thus to damage to such a component, because of the voltage drop present.